


Like Ships in the Night

by agent_wheeler



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Our Girl
Genre: F/F, F/M, Just kinda happened, i haven't had enough sleep for this, not really a crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_wheeler/pseuds/agent_wheeler
Summary: (assuming those ships have the navigational skills of the titanic)Hannah Cobb first encounters Lance Hunter in Afghanistan. She finds him again, possibly in the last place she'd think to look.All the characters you recognise belong to Marvel, or BBC Our Girl. I'm just borrowing them.
Relationships: Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse, Maria Hill/OFC
Kudos: 1





	1. Afghanistan, 2007

The shouting coming from Major Arden’s office can be heard from quite some distance away. Everyone on the camp knows that’s never a good thing. Something really awful must have happened for the normally taciturn man to resort to shouting.

This screaming is puzzling for the members of the Intelligence platoon in the adjacent room, all of whom have long-since abandoned their pretence at working in favour of eavesdropping. None of them could remember receiving any reports of an Op going wrong recently, and most of that sort of news generally found its way to their office. 

Eavesdropping, however, led to the confusion only growing. Because, unless they were all mishearing, it didn’t sound like Arden was chewing someone out, instead it very much sounded like it was the other way round, and someone was shouting at him. That meant it was either a junior Officer with a death wish, or a member of top brass who was visiting the base on short notice to complain. 

This had only happened a couple of times this tour, and generally, the whole base was given a day’s notice to be on best behaviour. 

“Are we sure no-one has heard of an Op gone bad from here recently?” Corporal Nickham asked. The group shook their heads, and there were a few moments of silence, until Lance Corporal Guiver said: “well, we had that report from the Tango Victor 3 mission that they encountered some local resistance? But I didn’t think that was such a disaster as to deserve this?” 

Suddenly, the door to Arden’s office flew open with a resounding crash, and the whole corridor could hear the argument with crystal clarity.  
“We didn’t know your men were there,” Arden said.  
“Well if we’d announced ourselves we wouldn’t have been a secret, would we? Jesus wept!”  
“Lieutenant, I’m sorry. But, beyond the resources I’ve already offered, I don’t see what else you want from me,” Arden said, a gentle, placating tone to his voice. A series of confused glances were passed around those assembled in the Intelligence control room. 

If the situation hadn’t been so serious, the mad rush of soldiers moving back to their workstations to pretend they hadn’t all been gathered round the door when Arden and the newcomer walked in would have been comic. Everyone immediately came to attention, looking at Arden, trying to figure out what was happening. However, explanations were not forthcoming. Instead, all the Major said was “Cobb, on me,” and then immediately made an about-turn to return to his office. 

Sergeant Hannah Cobb took a moment to process the fact Arden had said her name, before stuffing a notebook and pen in her trouser pocket and moving to follow Arden. She’d been in his private office only once before, when she’d been asked to give him a personal briefing before a large-scale Op. The office was sparsely furnished, but in the centre of the room was Arden’s desk, with two computer monitors and a printer all lined up meticulously on it. Cobb pulled herself to attention in front of the Major.  
“Relax, Cobb,” he said, and she fell into parade rest. “Sar’nt Cobb, this is Lieutenant Hunter. He’s… well you can probably guess. I’ll let him brief you in detail in private, but you’re with him until he says otherwise. Roger?”  
“Yes, sir.” Cobb replied. It wasn’t like she could argue. Instead, she turned to her left to properly look at the man who had been screaming at Arden earlier. The first thing that struck Cobb was how short he was. The second thing she noticed was that he was clearly SAS, or something like that. Even without the obvious give-aways, his lack of beret or rank-slide, he held himself in a way that somehow seemed more aggressive that even the more overzealous infantryman.  
“Well, let’s crack the fuck on, then.” Hunter said, pulling up to salute the Major, before moving to leave the room. Cobb did the same, and followed him back down the corridor. 

After walking for a while with no idea where the mysterious Lieutenant was taking her, the two of them arrived in the Officers mess. It being 4pm on a Thursday, it was pretty quiet - in fact the only other occupants of the room were two REME Officers playing chess in a corner.  
“Tea? Coffee?” Hunter asked.  
“Tea’d be great.”  
“Wonderful, one for me too please. One sugar.”  
“Sir?”  
“Crack on.” Hunter said, and then turned away and moved towards an empty table.  
Cobb fought hard to bite back a rude retort. She’d always been lucky with her Commanding Officers thus far, and hadn’t had many who were complete jerks. Clearly, her luck wasn’t holding.  
Armed with two polystyrene cups of tea, Cobb sat down opposite Hunter.  
“They said you’re good.”  
“Sir?”  
“Well, now’s my chance to find out. An infantry patrol this morning has managed to step on the toes of my two month deep surveillance operation. I need to get in and get my guy out, preferably taking out the group’s commander at the same time. I need someone on signals, monitoring incoming and outgoing, and providing simultaneous translation. I’ve been told that person is you?”  
“Sounds fun, sir,” Hannah replied, genuine excitement colouring her tone. It’d been a while since she’d been out in the field, away from her desk. What better way to test her skills than on secondment with the SAS. Hunter looked up at her for the first time, and gave her a scheming half-smile.  
“Good answer. I’ll introduce you to the rest of my team, and then we move at first light tomorrow.”

Turns out, ‘team’ was a bit of an overstatement, Hannah thought as Hunter showed her to the small tent where the SAS team had commandeered to sleep in that night. Hunter’s unit comprised of two other guys - their sniper, an incredibly tall Scottish man known as Spanner, and another English guy with a strong, London accent who introduced himself as Ricky. They seemed nice enough, though, and even Hunter became almost tolerable once the anger he’d built up talking to Arden had dissipated. After running ROC drills for the rest of the afternoon, the four of them sat together to eat dinner just outside of the tent, rather than descending on the scoff house.  
“So, Cobb,” Spanner started, “what’s your gig?”  
“Um, I’m Sargent Cobb, I’m 24, I’ve been in six years, specialism in foreign language signals intelligence. Outside of work I live alone in West London, well, alone if you don’t count the cat, and I play the recorder? I’m really not that exciting.”  
“The recorder? As in the thing we’re forced to learn in primary school?”  
“The very same. I’m grade seven I’ll have you know.”“That’s fucking whack,” Ricky scoffed.  
“What about you guys? How long have you worked together?”  
Hannah got a blank look from all three of them.“Right, right, it’s classified. Forget I asked.”

The meal descended into an uncomfortable silence, that continued until Hunter called lights out. Hannah didn’t mind all that much though - it gave her time to go through the prep-work that Hunter had handed her for tomorrow’s mission. She knew that realistically, she’d never see any of these men again after tomorrow - they’d be in the wind, and she’d be back behind a desk. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to throw everything she had at the mission.


	2. New York, 2010

Phil Coulson, without a shadow of a doubt, threw a phenomenal Christmas party. Or, rather, he threw two - one classified, and one unclassified. That is to say that the classified affair was strictly for SHIELD personnel, although shop talk was discouraged, and the unclassified one was open to spouses and partners, where all of Coulson’s colleagues adopted the collective lie that they all worked in the Asset Management team for the Department of the Interior. It was a standard cover, one that all SHIELD agents learnt, and it regularly came in handy. 

Hannah Cobb had left the army a year earlier. She’d stayed in touch with some of the folks from her old job, including securing an invite to a particularly memorable wedding between Spanner and a wonderful short Glaswegian woman who had no idea what she was getting herself in to. She’d also relocated to New York to work in the private security business. Not as an actual armed thug, no, but as the back-room brains behind operations. Much like the agents of SHIELD, however, this was not what she’d told her girlfriend, when she’d asked what Hannah did for a living. 

She’d met her girlfriend on Christmas Eve 2009, working in a soup kitchen helping to provide hot meals to New York’s homeless population. It hadn’t actually been Hannah who initiated the conversation. Instead, the other woman had come up to her and quietly said “at ease, soldier,” to her as she’d walked past. The force of habit was hard to break, and Hannah still hadn’t successfully banished parade rest from her posture, especially when being given instructions. 

But, when the two of them had been on meal-serving duty together, Hannah had noticed the other woman doing exactly the same, rocking on her heels. Going out on a limb, she said quietly, “takes one to know one.”  
“Excuse me?” The other woman asked.  
“I’m not wrong though, am I, ma’am?”  
The other woman let out a short laugh, but rolled her shoulders and smiled.  
“I’m Maria. Was in the Marines for eight years. You?”  
“Hannah, British Army, did eight-and-a-half.”  
“What brings a Brit to this part of the world?”  
“Work, to be honest. Working for the Embassy’s office. You’re a native New Yorker?”  
“Oh god, no, Chicago born-and-bred. Working for the Interior Department, splitting my time between New York and the District of Columbia.”  
“Interior? That’s parks and stuff, right? That’s a sight different from the Marines?” Hannah joked, but Maria didn’t react  
“It means I get shot at less, and that’s no bad thing.”

Fast forward a year, and Maria and Hannah have made plans to attend Coulson’s Christmas party together. Well, the one that Hannah knew about, anyway. Maria had said that her friends from work were bugging her about when they were going to meet her mysterious girlfriend. Some had even started a betting pool as to whether Hannah existed at all. 

The event was being held in a bar in Mid-Town, and Maria and Hannah had agreed to meet at the subway and walk the short distance to the venue together. If the number of security guys on the door at the event had surprised Hannah, she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t really her business to go digging as to why a group of paper-pushers from Interior needed that many armed guys at their Christmas Do. She and Maria had reached a mutual understanding that neither of them dug into the work the other did. It worked well for Hannah, she’d been able to stick to the line about the Embassy with limited effort. 

There’d been free champagne on the door, and once Maria and Hannah both had a glass, Maria set about introducing her girlfriend to her various colleagues. This was where the trouble had started. It had started well, and Hannah had found Phil Coulson himself very likeable, with his friendly but still no-nonsense demeanour. She’d then been introduced to “Victoria and Izzy”, who came, apparently, exclusively as a double act, Maria informed her. 

The issue had emerged when Maria had taken Hannah to introduce her to a third group of colleagues, and Hannah was very grateful that she was still largely sober and sufficiently in control of her reactions not to gawp. The next group Maria chose had comprised of two women, a tall, striking blonde, and a shorter red-head, and a blonde man, who had chosen not to wear a shirt with sleeves for seemingly no discernible reason except for to show off his extraordinary biceps. This could have been enough of a give-away that Maria did not, in fact, work for the Department of the Interior. What did give the game up, in the end, though, was when Maria introduced Hannah to the _literal Black Widow_. Literally anyone who had spent any time working in the intelligence community, or, as it turned out, in New York’s slightly unsavoury private security business, was aware of the significance of that code-name.

Frankly, Hannah felt she deserved a BAFTA for how well she’d reacted to the development that Maria and the actual _fucking Black Widow_ were on first-name terms. Or, if that hadn’t been enough, she definitely deserved it when Maria abandoned her with the group to go and find them more drinks.   
“So, what do you do, Hannah?” The blonde, who Maria introduced as Bobbi, had asked.  
“Oh, I’m working for the British Embassy’s delegation in New York.”  
“Hm,” Bobbi hummed, noncommittally, and Hannah suddenly became very aware that ‘working at the Embassy’ was the line literally every spy in the history of ever had used. She almost laughed at the thought. She wasn’t even a spy, she just needed a convenient cover story that wouldn’t lead to questions about her visa. In a bid to change the subject she asked, “so, what’s Maria like at work?”  
“Terrifying,” the guy, Clint, said, without a second’s hesitation.   
“Oh really?”  
“People call her the ‘Ice Queen’, you know,” he continued.  
“No way! That’s hilarious.” Hannah replied, relieved to find Maria back at her side already.

She and Maria had stayed at the party for another couple of hours after that point. Hannah did her damnedest to avoid Natasha, and Bobbi for that matter, for the rest of the evening. She noticed Natasha pull Maria aside at one point, but chose not to think anything of it. Her cautious detente with Maria about their employment had worked so far, she wasn’t inclined to believe that this would wreck that. Nonetheless, she was glad when Maria had come up to her whilst she’d been talking to a guy called Jasper, to tell her it was time to leave.


	3. New York, August 2011

Maria and Hannah’s relationship did, in fact, survive the surprises of the Christmas Party. 

For about eight months, anyway. 

On a humid day in mid-August, Hannah had just sat down to watch some daytime TV when the doorbell rang. She was surprised - she wasn’t expecting anyone. She was even more surprised when she saw through the intercom that her guest was Maria. However, when Hannah opened the door for her fifth floor apartment to her, it was immediately clear that Maria hadn’t come for a social call. Wearing black tactical kit, Maria had walked straight through into Hannah’s kitchen/living area, and dropped an inconspicuous manila file on the desk. 

“Maria?” Hannah had asked, her alarm growing with every passing second. “What’s this about?”  
"I was rather hoping you could tell me that.” Maria almost growled, flinging open the file. “I’ve been working a case for the last few weeks, and a name cropped up today that surprised me. Care to explain?”  
Hannah bent forward to read over the file, and felt herself go cold. Somehow, Maria had managed to get hold of her name in connection to a job-gone-wrong from the week prior. She’d been the liaison contact for a group of hired security, and they’d come into contact with a well-organised armed group. Well, fuck.   
“Maria,” Hannah said, choosing to focus on something else that had caught her attention in the document Maria had presented her with. “What the bloody hell is the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division?”  
“That - that doesn’t matter. What matters is why the hell your name is on this document? Is this how you define ‘working for the embassy’?” Maria asked, using air quotes.   
“I think it’s fairly important. Last I was aware, the Interior Department didn’t have anything to do with any of this? This is Homeland Security business.”  
“Yes, but I can hardly go around saying I work for a secret agency, can I?” Maria said, exasperation beginning to break through her professional tone. Hannah quirked an eyebrow at her.  
“Look, if you’re here to arrest me, get on with it.” Hannah said, resignedly.  
“Wait, Han, what? No! I’m. We. This doesn’t say you’ve broken any laws. Should - should we be arresting you for something?” Maria’s voice was rising in pitch.  
“Well, in that case. Can we not just say we’ve both been dishonest and move on?”   
“No! We cannot do that! Because I’m working with the government to make the world a safer place, and you’re a mercenary!” Maria almost shouted.   
Hannah couldn’t even reply. She just stared at Maria.   
“Well, I’m sorry I’ve upset your delicate sensibilities. I’d appreciate it if you could get out of my flat,” Hannah said, deadly calm.  
“Natasha warned me about you, you know. Last Christmas, at Coulson’s. Said she thought you were involved in something shady. I should have listened to her then.”   
“Well, that was a pretty big give-away about you, too, you know? When you introduced me to the literal Black Widow at your work Christmas gig? Not subtle, Maria.”  
“Fine, whatever. I’ve got to get back to the office. If we need you for questioning, we’ll let you know.”  
“I look forward to it,” Hannah spat. Maria picked up her folder, turned and left.   
Hannah put her head in her hands. Now that she knew SHIELD was on to her and the people she’d worked with, she had a duty of care to make a few phone calls. It wouldn’t hurt for people to be on their guard. Then, she’d have to figure out her own next move. She’d decided to go to ground for a bit anyway, to let last week’s cock-up blow over, even though it hadn’t been her fault. Either way, now seemed like a good time to read over the work enquiries she’d had emailed through in the last few days to pick something to occupy her time, since she assumed she no longer had a girlfriend, at least.


	4. January 2015

First contact had been made whilst Hannah had been out getting groceries on a cold Monday morning in early January. A man had brushed past her and dropped a suspicious weight in her pocket. This wasn’t that untoward. Hannah had been put in contact with clients in a similar way before. She was a little unnerved as to how they’d managed to find her, but brushed the thought aside in favour of comparing the best-before-end dates on loaves of bread. She figured that whoever it was could call her, and then she could make the decision if she wanted to take the work.

The phone had rung almost immediately after she’d put her groceries down on her kitchen counter-top. The lift in her apartment building was busted again, so she’d had to walk, and had been looking forward to a proper sit-down once she’d dumped her bags.

“Who’s this?” She asked, immediately.  
“Miss Cobb, my name is Phil. I’d like to meet with you to discuss some work. Fancy lunch?” The voice was vaguely familiar, but the line had a lot of static on it.  
“Where?”  
“Diner on 65th? Meet me there at 12.15”  
The call disconnected. 

More dictated by curiosity than anything else, Hannah had indeed found herself outside the diner at 12.10. She’d never quite managed to shake her 5-minutes-early habit from her military days. She pushed open the door and walked inside, looking around, not that she was terribly sure who she was looking for. Out of the corner of her right eye, she saw a man in a suit stand. Turning her head to get a better look, her heart plummeted a little. This was indeed Phil, but further to the point, this was Phil Coulson, her ex-girlfriend’s colleague.

Of course, the collapse of SHIELD had been all over the news. Hannah had debated texting Maria to check she was okay, but had decided against it. The two women hadn’t spoken since the revelations that ended their relationship four years prior. As she approached, Phil stuck out his hand for her to shake.   
“Miss Cobb?”  
“Please, call me Hannah.”  
“Very well. Hannah, take a seat. I take it you remember me?”“You’re Coulson. You worked with Maria at definitely ‘The Interior Department’,” Hannah said, being very deliberate with her emphasis.  
“Maria says hello, by the way. I told her I was talking to you.”  
“She’s not HYDRA then, I assume?”  
“That’s correct. Fortunately. She’s too good for us to lose.”  
“Well, my ex aside, how can I help you, Coulson?” Hannah asked.  
“I wanted to offer you a contract. Doing logistics and intelligence for us, at our base. We can start with six months and then reassess.”  
“Who’s ‘us’? Didn’t SHIELD go up in flames? Literally?”  
“Not entirely. We still exist. In the shadows, and a shell of our former self, but we’re still there. And you’re talented. We could do with someone with your skill-set, especially when…”  
“Yes?”  
“I… Without Maria. Obviously, I’m not offering you Deputy Director,”  
“Maria was Deputy Director?” Hannah interrupted, incredulous.  
“She’s moved into the private sector now. So we need talented intelligence operatives. And I’d like you.”  
“What’s the pay?”  
“I’m sure we can find something suitable.”

And so, Hannah found herself met by a team in an SUV no more than 48 hours later, blindfolded and driven for hours. Eventually, she was asked to step out of the car, and the blindfold was removed. She found herself in a huge warehouse, or possibly a garage. In front of her, in a similar, yet not identical, suit, was Coulson.  
“Director,” she said, nodding her head in greeting as she pulled her black duffle bag out the boot.  
“Cobb. Hope your journey was okay.”  
“I’d ask you where the hell I am, but somehow I doubt you’d tell me.”  
Coulson offered a sly smile. Moving forward, he handed her an orange lanyard and ID badge.   
“Come through to my office, I’ll get you briefed,” Coulson said. Then, gesturing to one of the men who’d driven her, told him to put her luggage in her room.

The base was huge, and seemingly entirely underground. It took almost ten minutes to reach Coulson’s office, and on the way there they walked past a huge number of labs and office spaces, as well as two dining halls. At the end of a corridor, Coulson and Hannah walked into what looked like a common room and kitchenette, which was occupied by three men, all crowded round an Xbox. One, Hannah vaguely recognised as the man who’d put the burner phone in her pocket. The noise of her and Coulson’s arrival prompted two of the three men to turn briefly in their direction. The other was too engrossed in the video game to have noticed. Coulson offered them a nod and kept walking, but Hannah had stopped altogether.  
“Miss Cobb?” Coulson asked, gently. But Hannah wasn’t paying attention.   
“Lieutenant?” Hannah asked, instead. The video game was finally paused, and the last man turned around. Hannah had always had a good mind for names and faces.  
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Hunter asked. Hannah laughed and rolled her eyes.  
“I should really hope so, boss. I’ve watched you puke in a font at a wedding.”  
“Spanner? Wait, what?”  
“You wound me, Hunter.”  
“Fuck! Cobb, you said, Director?” Hunter asked, looking to Coulson. “As in, the Cobb who saved my arse in Afghan?”  
“The very same,” Hannah replied, offering a short (entirely sarcastic) curtesy.   
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Hunter asked.  
“Needed the money,” Hannah shrugged.   
“If you two are quite done?” Coulson asked. Hannah turned and continued following him up towards his office. 

As they walked through the doorway, Hannah noticed another woman already in the room. “Coulson, I,” the woman started, and then cut herself off.  
“Agent Morse, I don’t know if you remember Hannah Cobb?”  
“Maria’s ex? Why’s she here?”  
“She’s working with us for a bit. Turns out she and Maria have a very similar skill set. Go figure.”  
“If you’re not careful, the Brits will outnumber us on this base, boss.” Morse said.   
“Well, she’s apparently already friends with Hunter,”  
“Huh?”   
“We worked together when we were both in the army,” Hannah explained.   
“Well, Agent Morse and Hunter are - were - are(?) dating,” Coulson explained.  
“You’re fucking brave,” Hannah said to Bobbi, impressed.  
“Oh, don’t I know it. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll catch you around later. See you, boss.” Bobbi said, and left.   
“So, welcome to SHIELD, Cobb. Shall we get started?”


End file.
